


What it Says on the Tin

by furiosity



Series: Eternal Summer (Right out of Hand) [3]
Category: Free!
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-10 00:44:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2004333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furiosity/pseuds/furiosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Rei bakes Rin cookies as thanks for teaching him all the cool swimming moves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What it Says on the Tin

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when one spends way too much time thinking about the real-world logistics of anime characters doing things.

On Sunday, Rei squints at a cake display.

Intellectually, he has always known that there are many different types of cakes, but until now it has never occurred to him just how many. And what if Rin is particular about the type of cake he likes? When Nagisa makes Rei tag along for treats, Rei always chooses items with the highest nutritional value, so he would choose a cake covered with fresh seasonal fruit and berries over one slathered in sugary icing or fondant, no matter how beautiful.

Even if he were to settle on a type, what would be an appropriately sized cake? Rin probably doesn't have a refrigerator to store it in, so it would be troublesome if Rei gave him a very large cake. What if Rin wanted to share the cake with his friends in the dormitory? It would then behoove Rei not only to purchase the largest possible cake, but also to provide a) an appropriate utensil to cut the cake, b) disposable plates, c) disposable cutlery, and d) serviettes. Otherwise Rin would end up spending more effort on trying to eat the cake than Rei did on procuring it.

But what if Rin _didn't_ want to share his cake and Rei provided those things (and a large cake) anyway? Wouldn't it make Rin feel pressured to share? Some gift that would be. Some people wish to eat the whole cake. According to Nagisa, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and Rei has learned to defer to Nagisa's judgement on matters that involve baked goods. He wishes he could have consulted Nagisa about this one, but then Nagisa would want to know why Rei was buying Rin a cake in the first place.

Rei straightens up and touches his glasses to make sure they're still steady on his nose.

What could he give Rin that he would be reasonably sure Rin would like, that didn't require any special storage conditions, and that could be shared without inconvenience?

A box painted with butterflies in different shades of blue catches his eye in a nearby shop's window. He's never noticed the shop before: the sign reads _Baker's Seven_. Rei wants a closer look at the box, so he steps through the doorway into a cacophony of scents unlike any he's ever experienced. It is a shop for baking enthusiasts -- one whole wall is lined with a variety of wondrous powders and liquids used to produce different flavours and colours. One no-nonsense, sturdy shelf displays at least seven different kinds of sugar and five different kinds of chocolate, plus a multitude of assorted decorative candy, sold by weight. The other wall is home to inedible decorations -- tiny princesses and tinier dragons, brightly painted tins with outrageous price tags, and sombre cardboard cake boxes in solid colours, folded away to save space. Here are cookie cutters in every conceivable shape, and there's a collection of glossy cookie jars with anime characters on them.

Cookies! Of course, cookies are an obvious answer to Rei's dilemma -- if formed properly, they are very beautiful, not too difficult to make, quite delicious, plus they can be stored at room temperature and shared freely. And to make them even more useful, Rei could try and give them a little nutritional boost.

When Rei is on fire about something, his hesitancy to speak to strangers vanishes -- thirty minutes later, having thoroughly quizzed the shopkeeper about baking and decorating cookies, he departs the shop with an phone full of notes and an armload of purchases. To wit: the beautiful butterfly cookie tin along with a butterfly cookie cutter (sold as a set), a pouch of vanilla extract, a measure of confectioner's sugar, a small tube of corn syrup, a cookie decorating manual (lots of pictures!), and a bottle of food colouring that Rei thinks will suit Rin's personality -- neither ostentatiously bright nor pastel; a nice subdued, manly shade.

(It never occurs to Rei that Rin might not enjoy sweet things at all.)

On Monday, Rei does research.

He arrives at Samezuka a little earlier than usual and manages to corner Nitori on his way to the dormitory from swimming practice. He wastes no time asking him to list everything served in Samezuka's cafeteria the previous week, what Rin liked to eat, and whether or not Rin ate most of his meals at school. Nitori is thoroughly bewildered, but after Rei tells him that he's planning a surprise for Rin, he becomes quite agreeable. Unfortunately, he can't remember every single thing served at school, but Rei gets enough to go on.

"Are there things Rin-san tends to leave on his plate, do you know?"

Nitori frowns as he puzzles over the question for a moment. "Well, he does tend to not finish his rice, I guess. But to be honest, I haven't eaten with him since Yamazaki-senpai came."

Rei makes a note on his pad. Like any serious athlete, Rin would be married to any number of routines, especially those to do with nutrition and fitness: if he had a tendency to leave aside some of his carbohydrate-rich food last year, that habit has most likely persisted. It was also probably safe to assume that Rin doesn't eat much between mealtimes, and if he does, his propensity for high-protein foods makes him unlikely to reach for high-calorie fried snacks like potato chips: he'd probably chew on some beef jerky or dried squid, instead.

Any endeavour has to rest on some assumptions; they are only unscientific when they are baseless or illogical.

It is troubling to know that Rin doesn't tend to enjoy sweet things, but Rei supposes he can just reduce the amount of sugar he uses in the cookies. He'll have to see if that's possible without ruining the recipe. If anything, Rin's avoidance of sweet foods and tendency to leave rice aside might even mean that his carbohydrate intake is not in line with what he should be getting as an athlete.

Rei forces his plans to the back of his mind during the swimming lesson with Rin, but as soon as he gets home, he pulls up his nutrition spreadsheet -- he created one years ago to ensure a properly balanced diet for the whole family. Unfortunately, his parents and brother have always been less than enthusiastic about making sure their daily intakes of various micro- and macronutrients were in line with health recommendations. He creates a new tab named _Matsuoka Rin_ , pastes the nutrition data entry form from the master copy, then enters Rin's weekly dietary intake according to Nitori's information and Rei's totally sound assumptions. Once he's entered everything, he pushes the calculate button that cross-references Rin's data against the nutrition database Rei put together, and then he waits until the form displays Rin's essential nutrient statistics and compares them to daily ideals.

Sure enough, Rei's earlier hunch proves correct -- Rin should be getting at least two hundred more calories a day from carbohydrates, but more importantly, his diet is rather low in selenium, magnesium, and vitamin K2; all common deficiencies that everyday people might not even notice, but not at all acceptable for an athlete's perfect body. Of course, Rei has the necessary supplements on hand, and luckily, all of them are in capsules: unscrew one, and you can tap the powdered contents out onto the edge of a knife to add to whatever you wish.

He stays awake well into the night looking up cookie recipes and reading about baking techniques. Everything Rin reads cautions against careless substitutions. He also learns that if he adds powdered supplements to the dough, they are likely not only to alter the taste and texture of the cookies but also to react with other elements to form compounds that ought not to be ingested. He's glad he's decided on using a decorative glaze: he can add the supplements to that. Of course, he'll have to make sure he controls the dosages so that it is safe for Rin to eat the whole tin at once if he so wishes. Rei doesn't think Rin will eat the whole tin, though. Only someone who likes sweet things might do that.

Above all, Rei is endlessly fascinated: although there is much variation in the sorts of cookies one can create, there is a startling regularity of proportion that his mind picks up on after the seventeenth recipe or so. It is as though baking were a kind of science.

(It never occurs to Rei that baking is applied chemistry made beautiful.)

On Tuesday, Rei bakes cookies.

The Ryuugazaki kitchen doesn't have a large, proper oven, just a counter-top microwave-toaster combination that does most jobs quite nicely: when they want to oven-bake something substantial, they go down the street to Nishiura-san's. Rei's mother usually brings her a nice bottle of designer sake as thanks for the favour, but as Rei is underage, he opts for chocolate-covered strawberries, instead. 

Nishiura-san gives him tips on getting the dough flattened without drying it, and even shows him a trick to avoid wasting good dough after the first cutting: ball up the ragged dough bits, flatten the ball again, and have another go with the cutter. Rei would never have thought of that on his own; he probably would have discarded the tiny bits of dough as useless. Thanks to Nishiura-san, though, he uses every last bit of the dough, except for a scrap stolen by her little dog.

He wishes he could have Haruka-senpai's help with the decorating part: it would be nice to draw beautiful designs onto the crisp, delicious butterflies waiting in the oven. But he can't let Haruka-senpai know why he's baking cookies any more than he could let Nagisa know he was thinking about buying a cake, so he just does his best by spreading the coloured glaze he made on the butterfly wings and shaping it so it aligns with the cookie edges.

The cookies are done and cooled just in time for Rei to leave for Samezuka. Only a dozen and a half fit into the butterfly tin, so Rei leaves a dozen with profuse thanks for Nishiura-san's time, and takes the leftovers home in a paper bag. His mother tries one, exclaims over it, and Rei exhales in relief -- he tasted a little bit of the glaze just to make sure the supplements didn't turn it bitter, but he's been too scared to try a cookie.

After the swimming lesson, Rei proffers the butterfly tin to Rin. "Please accept these. For your help until now and for the rest of this week."

"F-For me?" Rin asks, his eyes softer than they were a moment ago.

"Erm, yes. I-I wanted to get you a cake, but I-- baked these, instead. Cookies. I asked Nitori-kun about your dietary habits and added some nutritional supplements based on that information. Of course, my data were imprecise, so please keep that in mind."

"Aw, you didn't have to go to so much trouble," Rin says, stammering a bit.

"I-- I hope you enjoy them!" Rei squeaks. He hadn't meant to go on and on about the cookies; everyone knows gifts are supposed to speak for themselves, and how he feels terribly rude for talking up a gift he's just given.

But he really does hope Rin enjoys the cookies.

(It never occurs to Rei that no one's ever baked cookies just for Rin before.)


End file.
